


"I can’t hold enough of you in my hands."

by Likorys



Series: Tumblr snippets [3]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: I'm not sorry, M/M, TIL: deer's antlers are a controlled cancer, and Jaskier is the ray of sunshine every brooding witcher need in their lives, remember that one joke Yennefer made about Geralt having horns?, that's the plot, witcher bilogy and how weird it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:21:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22980895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likorys/pseuds/Likorys
Summary: Some rumors about witchers are false. Some carry a grain of truth to them. Jaskier found out about one of the latter and, as always, deal in the single way Geralt could never predict.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Tumblr snippets [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651510
Comments: 8
Kudos: 236





	"I can’t hold enough of you in my hands."

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a quote by Franz Kafka.

Witcher mutations don’t come without a cost. It should be obvious, but nobody likes to think about that, just like people like Geralt to go and kill their monsters, but scorn if he comes back wounded and makes a mess in an inn.

The horns are a joke, mostly, a rumor just like any other. Except not entirely, because those abilities to heal and overcome poisons come at a price, and that price is _cancerous_ and causes headaches and if left alone, makes a witcher look like their mother took fancy to a deer. There is a reason most keep to longer hair despite how impractical it is when fighting.

It’s nothing pretty or nothing intimidating, like people might imagine. Honestly, it’s just an irritation, because the head-pain can become unbearable and interfere with work and it needs to grow from something so it heightens the hunger and will greedily take precedence over needs of the rest of the body.

But it can be slowed if you avoid infections and poisons and venom and all other things that would be needed to be pushed out, encapsulated within bones above the nape of your neck _if your lucky_ or at the top of your head _if your not_ , because it’s no coincidence the trails are put upon _children_ , with their freshly-joined skull bones that are weak enough to give away and allow for the growths.

Witchers are already monstrous enough with their pointed teeth and black eyes and everything else, so Geralt’s deals with it by the way of long hair, avoiding people and cutting the skin open to nip the thing off whenever the headaches start to get to him. But after Blaviken, he just can’t be bothered. Nothing can make people hate him more and there might be some self-punishment in the adherence to their fears.

So he ignores it and it grows and splits in two and curls around his head. After a while, he gets used to the constant headaches as they lose the intensity and become not unlike pains he gets from the worst scars. It probably makes it worse for other Witchers, but he’s been avoiding Kaer Morhen for years, avoiding judgment _or worse_ , the support.

Then comes Jaskier who’s strange and enthralled by sharp teeth and black eyes and finger’s leaving bruises on his skin and bites that linger for weeks and who _laughs_ when Geralt’s snarling at him. But it’s the ‘horns’ that have him truly – _delighted_ would be too soft a word, because it’s not even a weak before the idiot starts cutting of straps of his bright clothes and to _wrap them around_ the bones.

Geralt makes a mistake of tolerating it and it backfires like everything when it comes to Jaskier, because the bard starts wasting coins on jewelry and other trinkets and putting them along the damned things and-

It’s _obnoxious_ and it catches the light and it makes noise and adds to the weight, Geralt’s not a maiden to be flittering with gold and the silver can be better used better to fix his sword, but-

Jaskier loves to play with the jewelry and silk ribbons and then his fingers will naturally slip to the base Geralt’s skull, massaging at the skin or brushing through his hair, and it’s – nice. It helps with the headaches as well, so he allows it.

When a nasty fight has a monster crush him to the ground and break the horns off, Jaskier mortified and afraid and spends a month nursing an open wound on Geralt’s head as the bones heal enough to close up and not have his brain out in the open.

Geralt has a choice then, probably, to stop it and go back to the old ways of dealing with it, because it’s clearly _a danger_ in his profession, but… he got used to it. And the headaches when the thing starts growing in again leave him curled up for nights, only Jaskier’s fingers and smelly oils giving him any comfort, so much worse than he remembers and nothing like the dull discomfort he got uses to dealing with.

He lets the damned horns grow out again and tries not to fall in love when Jaskier, instead of being disgusted at the process, starts braiding his hair so necrotizing skin and tissue will be easier to clean up and even takes to doing it himself. He finds oils to soothe the skin around them and nuts for him to eat to stave off the hunger-pains when they grow the most and then goes back to waisting coin on adornments, but also to never keeping his hands off for too long.

It’s objectively fucked up, but everything about Geralt’s life is, so he’s not gonna look a gifted horse in a mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a request by @marco-young that I stole from @buttercuppedwitchers whose works you should absolutely go and read.


End file.
